Mist drifting over the Teesta between the steep forested walls of its gorge at Sevoke, North BengalBoudhayan Bardhan / Unsplash

The people

The people you will be speaking to

Five of us run Darjeeling Trips, and about twenty drivers and guides travel with our guests through the season. This page says what each part of that does for you, and who is awake when something goes wrong.

In short

One designer writes your plan and stays with it, from the first email to the week after you are home. Behind that plan, one desk books and re-checks the houses, cars and permits. The phone and WhatsApp number in the footer is answered 24x7 every day of a journey in progress, and in the hills you travel with drivers and guides who live in them.

The shape of it

A small office and a season of drivers

There are five of us. Four have run the company since it began, between the designing of journeys, the day to day operations and the monasteries, gardens and village walks that go into a plan. The fifth cooks, for the evenings a journey spends in a family house rather than a hotel dining room.

That is the whole office. There is no sales desk and nobody whose job is to chase you, which has one plain consequence: the person who answers your first email is the person still answering in month four. Beyond the office, about twenty drivers and guides travel with our guests through the season, living a few valleys from the routes, which is why a road closure reaches us as a call from somebody standing on the road.

Our names and roles are below. What is not below is a biography each, because the useful thing to know is not where somebody studied. It is who picks up, and when.

Stage by stage

Who answers at which stage

  1. Your first enquiry

    A travel designer

    The person who replies is the person who will write your plan. A reply comes within 24 hours, and no deposit is asked for to begin.

  2. While the plan is written

    The same designer

    Drafts, changes and the awkward questions go to one person: the steps at the door, the heating, whether the kitchen can feed a five year old at 19:00.

  3. Once you say yes

    Operations

    Houses, cars, guides and permits are booked, then re-checked against the plan. You need never speak to this desk, but it is why your room and your papers match what you read.

  4. Before you fly

    Your designer again

    You get the written confirmation with the day by day plan and the number to call at any hour. At Bagdogra your driver waits at the arrivals exit, never inside the hall.

  5. While you are travelling

    Whoever is awake here

    The phone and WhatsApp number in the footer is answered 24x7, every day of a journey in progress, in every country on your plan.

  6. After you are home

    Your designer

    The person who wrote the plan is the person who reads what you thought of it, and who hears about anything that went wrong.

The 6 am call

At 6 am, when a road closes

In the monsoon, NH10 up the Teesta can shut for a slide with no notice, and a pass road can close under snow in January. It is the part of this work nobody advertises, so here is how it goes.

The call comes to the number in the footer, and it is answered here in the hills rather than in another time zone, which is the only reason 6 am is useful. Before you are rung back, three things happen: the driver is reached, the house you were due at tonight is told, and the road is checked with people standing on it. Then you get one call with what is open, what is not, and two options rather than a shrug.

What that costs you is in the booking terms, not decided on the morning. If a road, a flight or a permit fails for reasons beyond anyone's control, the journey is rearranged at no fee from us, and only the difference in supplier costs is passed on, if there is any.

In the hills

What to expect from the drivers and guides

  • They live near the routeAbout twenty drivers and guides work with us through the season, most of them a few valleys from the roads they drive and the trails they walk.
  • Their fee is a line in your quoteEvery drive and every guide is listed separately, with the date that rate was checked, so you can see what their part of the journey costs.
  • They change where the rules changeBeyond a border, or where a state asks for a local operator, the car and the guide change. We tell you where that happens on your days.
  • A guide in Bhutan is required, not optionalBhutan asks for a certified Bhutanese guide with every visitor at all times, and in the Kathmandu valley a licensed Nepali guide travels with you.
  • The cook is for the family housesWhere a journey includes a Sikkimese or Nepali supper in a house rather than a hotel, it is cooked by somebody we know and have eaten with.

There are no portraits on this page yet. Rather than fill the space with a photograph of somebody who does not work here, we have left it empty until we have our own. The names and roles below are correct as they stand.

Questions people ask about us

Will I be handed to somebody else after I pay?

No. The designer who writes your plan is the person you write to while you are planning, while you are travelling and after you are home. The operations desk works behind that, not in front of it.

Who answers at night while I am travelling?

The phone and WhatsApp number in the footer, +91 86178 24110, is answered 24x7 every day of a journey in progress. Before and after a journey, a designer replies within 24 hours.

Can I speak to somebody before I decide anything?

Yes, and it costs nothing. There is no deposit to begin planning and nothing is booked until you say yes, so a first conversation is a conversation about your month and your people.

What happens if I am unhappy with one of us?

Write to the email in the footer and say so plainly. How a complaint is handled, and what we will and will not do about it, is published.

Narendra Giri

Founder

Born in Darjeeling · started the company in 2017 from a rented room above the bazaar

Manish Giri

Co-founder & travel designer

Writes the field notes · designs most journeys personally

Gourav Giri

Co-founder & operations

Runs the drivers, houses and permits day to day

Purusottam Upadhaya

Co-founder & local experience lead

Monasteries, tea gardens and the walks between villages

Suman Barman

Chef

Cooks the Sikkimese and Nepali dinners we arrange in family homes

Plan my journey

Tell us the month and we will plan around it

Four lines are enough to start: when, who, how to reach you, and the trip you picture.

  1. A reply within 24 hoursFrom a designer in the hills, not an auto-reply. If your dates are tight, the reply says so.
  2. A day-by-day draftEvery house, drive, guide and permit on its own line, with the date each rate was checked.
  3. Change anythingAs often as you like, before anything is booked.
+91 86178 24110 Message a designer Support 24×7, every day of your journey
With country code if outside India. Either this or email is enough.
Who is coming, the pace you like, the occasion. A sentence is fine.
Add more detail
Their ages help: add them in your note
Permits in Sikkim and fees in Bhutan depend on it
A week in the hills starts around ₹1.4 lakh per person, and Bhutan around ₹3.25 lakh.
Calls from our office, 8am to 9pm IST (GMT+5:30)
Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Gangtok, Pelling, Bhutan, Nepal

No deposit to begin, and nothing is booked until you say yes.